Pilot cars use what you already have, wisely.

Pilot cars should use it wisely.

If you’re an avid reader of our e-mail’s you may be tired of reading this but it absolutely needs to be said again. Please allow me to illustrate; So you have a pilot car company or run pilot cars. You want work. You create a Facebook page, you create a Twitter. You list your company anywhere you can free. You wait. Perhaps someone throws you a crappy bone and you run for a “broker” who has no bond, no authority, nothing but folks say they pay. You hope so because after you made the runs you didn’t make a whole lot and you even dead-headed back home making nothing. WHAT???

Ok. Nothing’s going to stop you! You go spend $15 at Staples for 500 business cards for your company They look nice and are easy to create. So you fill up ‘yer wallet with them, give a few to the kids and friends. You even find a tired truck driver and push 5 on him. Nothing – oh but the pilot car “broker” lady out of wherever called with something too far away. She’s out of Seattle what’s she doing with runs for pilot cars way down here? How? WHAT??? Oh well.

And so the monkeys continues to swing in joy.

But what about you? How do you grow? Pilot cars are hard work? Sure it is but it’s not all just behind the wheel. Things are a lot different these days – so a little bit of detailed planning is involved. You can’t rush a load – the drivers already going 75 mph so how does all of this work? Slow down your game first. Step back and take a look at your operation. What you have and possibly a few more things you need. Envision your company operating the way you want it to from the books to the steering wheel while you’re relaxed. Then realize it is possible – others do it.

Time to get to work.

First and foremost. Anything you have that is online you’re constantly going to add things to it. Add more photos, more text and look for more “friends”. While LinkedIn has a weird name and is kind of “on the odd side” consider using it and try linking with anyone/company related to heavy-haul, over-dimensional shipping or pilot cars. Look at their profile picture first and if you see a truck One quick way) then click “connect” then look at their job title and if you see “logistics” click “connect”. Don’t forget to add MORE, MORE, MORE text to your Facebook and any other free ads you have out there. Blow them up. Why? Simple, “content is king” if you have no content the search engine spiders read what you have and pretty much say to themselves “not much here” and report it back to the main server.

Realize this; you don’t have to be on the front page to make more money. This is a thinking error;. If you don’t type well that’s fine, take your smart phone and dictate voice to text to it and e-mail it to yourself. Then highlight it, right click it and select copy and then paste it wherever you want it. Wahlaa! Doing this over and over for just a few weeks will bring you up a few steps which is great but don’t loose sight of your vision which will take some consistency.

Be wise.

Go to Google. Type in “free google business listings” and hammer our your own local ad free! There’s no need to pay a Google “broker” that calls and wants $300 to put up a listing for you when the service is free. Get yourself listed. It takes a few days as they have to mail you a verification post card but remember: 1. It’s free and 2. You can’t go from 0-70 that fast online even if it goes viral, it takes time. If you have a paid listing anywhere online first evaluate them. Do trucking companies go to this site looking for pilot cars? How long has the site been up?

Do your due diligence.

Go to the “Wayback Machine” and find out for yourself. If they’re newer (5-10 years) then a link on them isn’t worth that much. Be sure you click on some of the saved paged in the Wayback Machine and see if it wasn’t just parked for 10 years. No false representation here. Linking (backlinks) is much more powerful on a site that has a lot of online history. Find a internet dinosaur related to pilot cars and now you’re working with something! You can even justify spending a few bucks a month as it’s over-all going to bring you more business. But make sure you always do two things:

1. Continually change or add to your content.

2. Don’t ever let the backlink listing fall off as then you’ll tumble down in rankings and probably hard. There’s no lack of pilot car loadboards that say “we text you, email you, alert you and WOW sites out there but you’ll just have to figure that out on your own. Snake oil has always sounded pretty good so by all means drink up! Not!

Work your way up.

Want that banner on the high traffic sites? Want the Google Ad that just puts you in first place? Truth is if you could afford the Google Ad you wouldn’t be driving a pilot car so the next logical step is to advertise or get backlinks on very old, well established high traffic website as their fees are cheaper anyway. The traffic is all related to you and you don’t have 15 year old kids clicking on ads that cost per click. Go for the yearly or monthly rate and don’t just automatically accept their monthly rate. Ask for the advertising manager and start playing your fiddle. There’s a deal for you in there somewhere much of the time.

Things are different these days. Technology advances daily and the internet is the new “GE” or “IBM” and here to stay. Just like you we have to adapt to this (which is how we are able to share) new way of doing business as there’s no choice in the matter. If you’re going to get in the game half-ass is not going to cut it and your’e always going to be looking for more (meaning you’re going to settle for brokered runs). Know what you’re doing, be persistent at it and you will accomplish your vision.

If you’d like verification of what we have to say in this article simply read this “The Daily Egg” article on linkjuice or search the term.

About PiloTrac.com

PiloTrac is brought to you by WideloadShipping.com - the largest marketplace for oversize and heavy haul shipping quotes in the world. Since 2003 we have been sending the trucking companies that use our system to the pilot car companies that list their services on our site. After many years we realized a live system would be not only more fair, but efficient as well. With our live posting feature pilot car companies have a better chance at getting a back haul thus maximizing your bottom line. Live posting works and persistence pays!